Spanish Civil War Memory Project

Summary

Álvaro Fernández Alonso was born in Madrid in 1942. He describes 1960s Spain as a concentration camp. He recounts going to Paris at age eighteen, studying at the Sorbonne, and joining the French Communist Student Union and Juventudes Comunistas (Communist Youth). Álvaro relates being detained distributing propaganda in Madrid in 1964, sentenced to thirty-six months in prison, and imprisoned in Carabanchel, Cáceres, and Burgos. He discusses the Bolshevik Revolution, the Communist International, the Spanish guerrillas, the Communist Party of Spain, the anti -Fascist struggle, the Frente Español Democrático Revolucionario Antifascista (Spanish Democratic Revolutionary Anti-Fascist Front), the Communist Party of Spain (Marxist-Leninist), and the Frente Revolucionario Antifascista y Patriota (Revolutionary Anti-Fascist and Patriotic Front). Álvaro speaks about Spain in the context of World War II and the Cold War, Franco's politics, the collaboration of the U.S. government and the CIA with Franco's regime, and the reinstitution of the Spanish monarchy. He recalls going to Barcelona in 1967, where the Front Nacional de Catalunya (National Front of Catalonia) helped him live clandestinely and seek refuge in France. He narrates his return to Spain, the death of Julián Grimau, the strong repressions of 1973 and 1975, the Transition, and the executions that the police carried out between 1975-77. Álvaro comments on the Amnesty and Historical Memory laws, contemporary politics, his current militancy, and the recuperation of historical memory